I received a tremendously informative email today from Sandra Poth, the Director of Testing and Evaluation for San Antonio's Northside ISD. Rather than paraphrase, her entire comment is below.

It is no wonder that the 65% Rule doesn't work as a template when its basis is a definition developed 25 years ago. In 1980 Paul Allen and Bill Gates were still working to develop what would become DOS. Wordperfect 1.0 and the Commodore 64 were still 2 years from being launched, Dell was still 4 years from being formed, Microsoft's IPO is still 12 years away, and Time pronounced the coming Jetsons-esqueRobot Revolution. If we're going to use that timeframe to define the educational future of our 21st century students, Thomas Friedman will be proven right and India, China, and many other countries that value education will far surpass us within our children's lifetimes.

We should neither accept nor tolerate buzzwords and catch phrases in place of thoughtful decision making.

Mr. Falick,I am currently researching the 65% initiative for my district Superintendent. To get background information, I contacted NCES about how/where the 65% idea came from since First Class Education uses the NCES definition. Frank Johnson of NCES responded and told me that the defintion of 'direct' instruction evolved into common practice by 1980. I asked if NCES has ever considered 'revisiting' (or reviewing) this 25+ year old definition. He stated that they (NCES) hardly ever have anyone ask about reviewing/revisiting. I guess I don't have to tell you how much has happened in 25+ in education and the world. I feel that since NCES is a component of the USDE, and, as such, is respected as THE source for all things like this....there should be some mandatory review process for such significant items as a definition that shapes educational policy as this 'direct costs' definition does.

Mr. Johnson went on to state that [quote] "The USDE is not supporting or connected in any way that I know of with the First Class Education initiative to get states to require that school districts spend at least 65% of total current expenditures on Instruction. FCE does site and use our definitions for instruction. These definitions have been in use since at least 1980. I believe that '65 percent' was chosen because it appeared chievable by the authors of this initiative. The national average (in 2002-2003) was 61.3%."

Interesting way of establishing crucial eductational policy--taking a simple average of state costs and picking a point above that average that is 'achievable'.

Comments

What do I remember about 1980 from an educational standpoint? Desegregation. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard recently pubished an informative study entitled "New Faces, Old Patterns? Segregation in the Multiracial South". One comment from the report is as follows: "The problem of Latino segregation is severe because there has never been any serious effort to desegregate Latinos and Latino enrollment is growing in states with already large concentrations of Latinos. Even since 2001, the share of Latinos in majority white schools has dropped, especially in states such as Texas, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Delaware and
Louisiana. 21 States such as Texas and Florida that are seeing the fastest growth in Latino
enrollment are also among the states where Latino students experience the greatest segregation. Many of the civil rights cases against Latino segregation were brought to court in Texas where despite a brief period of integration from 1970 to 1980, it was one of the first states to end its urban desegregation plans." You can read the report at:http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg05/resegregation05.php